


where the cool grass grows

by lindentree



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, First Kiss, Fishing, Friday night in the country vibes, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, POV Beth Greene, Survival, Survivor Guilt, Swimming, Title from a Country Song, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22688524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindentree/pseuds/lindentree
Summary: The moon is full, hanging heavy and ripe in the cloudless night sky, when they stumble out of the woods and onto the grassy, sloping bank of a creek.After burning down the stillhouse and surviving their moonshine hangovers, Beth and Daryl find a fishing hole.[Takes place immediately post-4x12 "Still"]
Relationships: Daryl Dixon & Beth Greene, Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Comments: 34
Kudos: 122





	where the cool grass grows

**Author's Note:**

> ["Fishin' in the Dark" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh3ml8gzrd4) has always had a strong Beth/Daryl vibe for me (which was why it was one of the songs Beth sings to keep herself company in [Surfacing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5266412).) The song is the inspiration for this fic and the source of its title. I recommend listening to Marais La Nuit by Neko Case while reading it, though!
> 
> Lately all I’ve wanted is to write Beth and Daryl getting to enjoy nice things. It's been a balm for my own heart, just trying to find more moments where things could have gone differently, and they might have gotten to have something very soft together.
> 
> Thanks to [ishie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie) for reading and cheerleading, and for always telling stories with me to survive the hard seasons. Love you, friend. <3

The moon is full, hanging heavy and ripe in the cloudless night sky, when they stumble out of the woods and onto the grassy, sloping bank of a creek.

Beth skids to a stop, dropping her hands to her knees as she tries to catch her breath, bright lights and dark spots floating in her eyes.

They’ve been running since their ramshackle camp in the woods was overrun just after sundown. Camped at the edge of a small clearing and leaning against the trunk of a fallen hickory tree, they’d spent the day nursing their hangovers in a swelter, taking turns napping in the shade.

But a walker had stumbled into the clearing, and then another, and then five more. Beth had lost count, and barely had time to get to her feet and grab their backpack before Daryl was taking her hand and tugging her after him into the woods.

They ran until Beth’s lungs burned and her muscles ached, until long after the herd had dissipated to stragglers and then to nothing. Then they kept running. They ran until they found this creek, and now she wants nothing more than to fall down in the grass and pass out.

Daryl reaches out and cups her elbow in his palm.

“C’mon.”

He’s breathless too, hoarse and winded. Beth straightens up and follows him on stiff legs downstream, still trying to catch her breath.

“Might be somewhere we can hole up ‘round here.”

Beth doesn’t answer. She just nods and tries to keep herself from collapsing to the ground.

She has no regrets about the moonshine, or about burning down the cabin. She couldn’t possibly regret any of that, not after she caught a glimpse of the smile on Daryl’s face as they left the burning house behind them. But she does wish they had a roof and four walls, now.

She’s also desperate for a drink of water, and they’ve been fresh out for hours.

Crickets and frogs sing a cacophony to the humid night as Beth and Daryl pick their way along the bank, through the long, dewy grass that shines silver in the moonlight.

A few minutes later, Beth’s heart rate has calmed and her chest no longer feels like there’s a knife lodged in it. Daryl’s noisy breathing has quieted, too; she hears only the normal nightsounds of the woods, and none of the telltale sounds of walkers shuffling clumsily through the undergrowth.

Ahead of them, the creek bends and widens out into a perfect swimming hole. So perfect that they’re far from the first to find it; there’s a weathered wooden dock jutting out into the water and a rope swing hanging from a sturdy branch on the far bank.

The pool is calm and still, only a slight current as the water slowly flows from one end of the pool to the other, where it narrows back into a creek and disappears between the trees. Moonlight pours in through the tops of the tall trees, reflecting off the surface of the water and filling the space with cool light. Beth can hear the faint sound of leathery wings and chirps as tiny bats flap through the air high above them, making meals of the moths flying by the hundreds overhead.

It’s beautiful here.

Daryl raises the hand that isn’t holding his bow and points over at the dock.

“Check it out.”

Leaning against the base of the dock is a pair of fishing poles and a tacklebox.

Daryl slings his crossbow over his shoulder so he can pick up the tacklebox and rummage through it. Beth steps onto the dock and walks to the end of it, looking down into the water. It’s too dark to see very well, but she guesses there wouldn’t be a dock and a swing here if it wasn’t a good place to swim.

She rubs her sweaty arms, irritating the scratches and bug bites that mottle her skin, and turns back to look at Daryl. As she does, she spots something about ten feet away, back from the creek bank, nearly hidden in the trees.

She goes over to have a look, her knife clutched in her hand, and finds a dirty, water-stained green and grey tent collapsed between two trees and partially covered with leaves. She peels back the ragged door. There’s no walker or corpse inside, she’s relieved to find, just a large knapsack and a sleeping bag. Beth hauls them out and carries them over to the dock, where Daryl stands, examining the fishing rods.

“Looks like somebody was tryin’ to hook a catfish,” he says, fiddling with the lure on one of the rods.

“Looks like somebody left their gear behind.”

Daryl glances up, letting out a low, pleased whistle.

Beth opens the knapsack and finds a treasure trove of useful things: waterproof matches, a utility knife, a first aid kit, a water purification tube, and at the bottom, a couple of collapsible metal cooking pans.

“Good spottin’.”

Beth tries not to preen. All she did was get lucky and happen to see the tent. There could just as easily have been nothing inside. Besides, Daryl would have spotted it eventually. Still, the half-smile on his face makes something warm flicker to life in her chest.

She pulls out the water purification tube first, and immediately goes down to the creek’s edge to figure out how to use it. It’s a simple enough device, and a few moments later, she’s guzzling water from it. She waves Daryl over to have some, too.

They both drink their fill, crouched on their knees in the sandy dirt. Eventually, Daryl sits back on his heels.

“Think I might try to get us a catfish.”

Beth stands up, brushing the sand off her jeans. She’s hungry, for sure; they’ve had nothing to eat all day except an unwary squirrel Daryl caught first thing that morning.

“Can we risk a fire?”

“Might be a spot where it won’t be too noticeable. Anyway, no guarantee I’ll catch nothin’. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Beth nods and looks out over the water once more. The water is peaceful, and it looks so cool and inviting. Her skin itches and she’s sweaty and sticky, and she suddenly becomes aware of how disgusting she feels.

Suddenly, she just _has to_.

"I need a swim."

Daryl gets to his feet.

"What the hell for?"

Beth turns to look at him. He looks genuinely perplexed, like she's just suggested they invite all the walkers in the area for a cook-out.

"Because it's hot, and I've got about a thousand bug bites on me, and because I stink like I’ve been runnin’ all day after I got drunk on moonshine and set a cabin on fire?"

Daryl scowls.

“Did you want me to keep goin', or...?"

Daryl rolls his eyes.

"Fine," he grumbles, his jaw working as he scans the woods around them for walkers. He swings his crossbow around into his arms, ready for whatever might come stumbling out of the woods. 

Beth barely restrains herself from rolling her eyes back at him. As if she needs his _permission_.

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Dixon."

Daryl's eyes cut to her, and even in only the moonlight, she can see colour creep up his neck to his cheekbones.

Beth reaches for the hem of her gore-stained yellow golf shirt, and yanks it up. Daryl mutters a curse.

"Shit. Warn a guy, will ya?"

When the shirt’s over her head and she can see again, she finds he's turned his back on her and is watching the woods on the near side of the creek.

The dirty skin on the back of his neck is red beneath the grunge, and so are the tips of his ears where they peek out of his messy hair.

Beth removes her knife and sets it down on the dock next to her shirt. She pulls off her boots and socks, and unbuttons her jeans, wondering whether she can chance giving everything a wash. It would be nice to get back into clothes that have at least been rinsed, if not properly scrubbed with soap. But if walkers find them while she's swimming, she'd make it pretty damn hard to make a quick getaway. Putting her smelly, dirty clothes back on will be a shame, but it's better than trying to pull wet clothes on while Daryl fights walkers all on his own.

She kicks her jeans off before folding them and placing them beside her shirt and knife. After a moment’s debate, she decides to keep her bra and underwear on. She glances over at Daryl’s resolutely turned back, watching as he slowly scans the woods, never turning his head enough to see her.

Daryl’s sweet. 

Of course, he’s really _not_. Maybe it’s just that he’s _good_ in a way that was rare before and seems all but extinct now.

She wishes he’d give himself a break. He’s been through hell, and neither of them know whether things will get better, or whether this moment is the last good one that either of them will ever have.

She wishes he’d just put his weapons down and come for a swim with her.

Beth turns back to the creek and wades in up to her knees. The bottom is sandy and clear of weeds, perfect for swimming. She shuffles her feet as she goes, hoping it’s enough to scare off any crawfish loitering in the shallows.

Wading in deeper, the creek bottom changes, the sand giving way to mushier silt. Weeds brush her calves.

She pulls the elastic out of her hair, wincing as it snags on her tangled hair. Sliding it onto her wrist, she allows herself a moment of longing for a hairbrush. She pinches her nose shut, takes a deep breath, and dives under the water, spinning and turning beneath the surface like an otter. The water rushes by her ears and through her hair, caressing every inch of her skin with cool relief as she kicks and kicks again, propelling herself under the surface. When she opens her eyes, the water is murky blue-green, lit only by the slanting moonlight. Thousands of bubbles burst around her.

Suddenly she’s not running scared at the end of the world, she’s just down at the swimming hole on the farm on a hot summer night, waiting for Maggie to join her.

It’s an illusion that only lasts until she breaks the surface for air.

“You can turn around now,” she calls to Daryl on the dock. “I’m not skinny dippin’, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Daryl doesn’t answer or move right away. But after a few moments, he haltingly gives a half turn of his body, and glances her way.

His scoff finds her across the water.

“Ridiculous.”

Beth shrugs, undaunted by his crankiness. She stands up and dips her head back under the water so she can scrub at her scalp with the pads of her fingers.

"It sure feels good, though."

She rubs the dirt and sweat from her arms and her neck and her face. She scrubs her armpits as best she can, enjoying how the cool water soothes her irritated, bug-bitten skin.

“This is stupid. Just so you know.”

Beth ignores him. She stands, the water lapping at her collarbones, and begins pulling tangles out of her matted hair with her fingers. It’s difficult with only the water to lubricate the knots, but she manages to comb her fingers through the strands eventually.

“Pretty weedy in there?”

There’s no sand or rocks beneath her feet, just weeds and mushy silt.

“Yeah, it’s just gunk.”

Daryl scoffs. “Great. You’re gonna come outta there covered in leeches.”

Beth wrinkles her nose. 

“Some asshole’s lost hook is gonna get stuck between your toes any minute. I ain’t helpin’ you pull it out, neither.”

That gives her pause. He’s right; there are likely dozens of old hooks amongst the weeds beneath her feet. She brings her hands together and extends her arms, turning her body into a torpedo, and kicks off the bottom to propel herself further out into the pool where she can tread water.

Daryl huffs, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, his crossbow cradled in one arm.

“There’s probably water moccasins and snapping turtles in there. You know that, right?”

“Pfft. They can see how big I am. I already scared ‘em off.”

“Yeah, them and all the damn fish.”

“Okay, you're probably right about that. Sorry.”

Daryl shrugs, then slaps at a bug on his neck and cusses under his breath.

“Since I already scared away your fish… Why don’t you come in?”

Daryl doesn't answer. He just flicks whatever insect bit him off his fingers and acts like he didn't hear her.

Beth tries not to smile.

“It’s real nice, Daryl. No mosquitoes in here.”

"Naw, you go on. I don't need a swim. 'Sides, somebody's gotta keep watch."

"Maybe you don't need a swim, but believe me, you could use a wash."

Daryl turns his head, and she can just make out the glare on his face in the moonlight. She bites her bottom lip, trying not to laugh. 

"C'mon. Just a few minutes, then you can go right back to scowling at the woods."

Daryl turns away and looks back out into the woods, and Beth's sure he's ignoring her, but he slowly turns again and looks at her. Then he looks down at his feet.

Setting his crossbow down on the dock, he shrugs off his leather vest. He leaves it beside his bow and he toes off his boots. His hands go to his belt buckle and he undoes it, his knife hitting the dock with a _thunk_ when his pants drop.

Beth looks away, up at the starry sky, and the vague shadows of the bats flying overhead, and just listens as Daryl trudges into the water. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him standing in the shallows in his sleeveless button down and boxer shorts for a moment before he dives under and comes back up, flipping his hair out of his face and turning onto his back.

“There,” he grumbles, floating a few feet away from her. “Happy now?”

Beth grins.

“Yeah, I’m happy.”

They float for some time without speaking, just treading water near each other. Beth stares up at the mass of stars in the sky beyond the tops of the pines and listens to the frogs and crickets chirp their songs across the water.

It’s so lovely, so absolutely relaxing, that she almost feels like she could fall asleep just like this, floating in the moonlight.

 _That’s dangerous_.

With a sigh, Beth rolls herself upright and begins treading. She tries not to stare at Daryl; she doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable and send him packing back to shore. But it’s difficult. Her eyes just wander that way, like they’ve been doing all day. All night, the night before, as they ran from the fire they set, his hand on her arm, both of them stumbling over tree roots, giddy with adrenaline and the dregs of moonshine still pumping through their blood.

She’d had a feeling Daryl Dixon could have fun, if he let himself.

Daryl disappears under the water for a moment, coming back up a few feet away. When Beth looks over at him, she sees a soft little flicker of light pulsing over his shoulder.

"Daryl, lightning bugs!"

He looks up and his eyes leave her face, stopping over her head. One corner of his mouth pulls into a half-smile.

"Look at that. They're all around you."

Beth turns her head in time to see a tiny light flash and disappear next to her face. She grins, and spins around in the water to see several faint lights drifting above the water around her, glowing bright and then snuffing out, only to reappear a few feet away.

Smiling, she cups her hands and kicks her feet, closing the distance between her and Daryl, so that she's floating right next to his shoulder. They watch the lightning bugs dance and glow on the breeze in silence for several minutes.

"You ever try to catch 'em?"

Beth glances at him. It's unusual for him to ask something like that; she's been the one to try to pull conversation from him.

"Yeah. My mom would let me stay up late with Maggie and Shawn on nights like this. She'd give us old jam jars and we'd go down to the pond to try to get some."

"We used to get 'em behind our place a lot, at the edge of the woods. Used to try to catch 'em in my hands out there, but I never could."

Beth smiles, watching as another tiny light drifts by Daryl’s head. She can picture him as a determined little boy, chasing after lightning bugs with cupped hands.

She imagines that boy’s smile was identical to the one the man across from her is wearing now.

"See,” she says. “This was a good idea."

"Is that your way of sayin' 'I told you so'?"

Beth smiles. "Maybe."

Daryl scoffs, but his smile widens. He glances at her, and his face looks so happy and relaxed that all she can do is stare at him. Happiness looks good on him.

She figured that out last night.

Then Daryl’s face changes.

" _Shit_ ," he mutters. 

Beth looks in the direction he's scowling: two walkers stagger along the dockside bank about twenty yards away. Daryl's already swimming for the dock. He gets to it in seconds and hauls himself up the ladder, his shirt and boxers clinging to his body as water pours off him.

In spite of the cool water, Beth’s cheeks go hot.

She swims after him, getting to the ladder as he lifts his cocked bow and shoots one of the walkers. As she climbs out of the water, the walker collapses to the ground. Daryl reaches down and grabs his knife off his belt, striding down the dock and over to the second walker. Beth goes for her knife as well, but Daryl quickly stabs the walker in the temple, and shoves it backwards into the brush.

"Whew," he mutters.

He leans down, wiping his knife clean on the sand, then stands and turns around. When he does, he stops short, staring at her. His eyes stay on her face, but there’s something strained about it, something exasperated, and as his cheeks flush dark pink before her eyes, she remembers that she only has her faded old bra and underwear on, and that she’s soaking wet.

She almost spins herself around in embarrassment. She almost stammers an apology. She almost makes it so much worse.

But she doesn’t.

“I’m gonna sit for a while, try to dry off.”

Beth turns around and goes to the end of the dock, where she sits down, touching the surface of the water with her toes. She sets her knife down on the dock next to her thigh.

It’s still plenty warm, though the breeze feels cooler now that her body’s dripping wet. It’s perfectly comfortable to just sit in her underwear while she waits for it to dry.

Perfectly comfortable. Perfectly normal, too, to do that in front of Daryl. Not weird at all.

There’s a painfully long pause where he stays absolutely still behind her. The only sound is the soft breeze in the treetops, the water flowing beneath her feet, and the relentless chorus of crickets and frogs nearby.

Then footsteps. A board in the dock creaks, and another, and then Daryl sits down beside her.

Beth releases her tense breath, exhaling out through her nose.

They sit without speaking, listening to the nightsounds all around them, their skin drying slowly in the humid air.

When Beth’s stomach growls noisily, Daryl turns his head to look at her.

“Hungry?”

“Yeah. A good swim always makes me hungry, and we didn’t eat much today.”

“Yeah.” 

Beth glances at him and sees the frown on his face. He holds himself responsible for a lot, starting with her noisy stomach. She bumps her shoulder against his. 

“Hey. That wasn’t a complaint, just so you know.”

Daryl’s only reply is a soft, annoyed kind of grunt in the back of his throat. He’s just not annoyed at _her_.

Out on the creek, about twenty feet away, something breaks the surface of the water. It’s too quick to be properly seen, a flash of movement there and gone in an instant, but it sends circles of ripples out in every direction.

"See that?" Beth says, keeping her voice low.

"Mm-hmm. Looks like we didn't scare 'em too much. Wanna fish?"

"It's worth a shot."

Daryl stands and goes to where the fishing gear sits. He brings the rods and the tacklebox over and sits back down right where he was before. The hair on his bare thigh tickles her skin, and she shivers.

Both rods already have hooks and lures attached. Daryl hands her one rod, and sets the other down so he can open the tackle box.

“That ain’t no catfish we just saw. Maybe a little sunfish or somethin’.”

Daryl fiddles with the lures for a while, detaching and attaching things, his knife neatly cutting the fishing line. 

Beth glances at him as he works. His skin's clean and his damp hair is pushed back from his face. He doesn’t notice her looking, too busy with the task before him. He's handsome, she realises with some surprise. She's never really thought of him that way before. It's not that she thought he was _ugly_ ; she's just never seen him exactly this way before. At ease, doing something he might have done before all this.

Daryl gets the tackle in place and takes the rod in his right hand. He holds it way off to the right and flicks it, sending a wide cast out beyond the dock, low over the water. The lure hits the surface and disappears without a ripple.

He reels the lure back in at a leisurely pace, and glances at Beth.

“You wanna?”

“Sure.”

Daryl winds the line in until the lure pops back up out of the water to glint in the moonlight. He passes the rod to her.

“You know how to cast?”

Her dad had taken her out fishing sometimes. It was something he did more with Shawn, especially after Maggie went to college. Still, he’d taught Beth the basics, and she’d been casting lines since she was a little girl.

Beth nods, taking the rod and casting over her head, sending the lure sailing out across the pool to the far side of the creek.

“Gonna pull out a bucketload of weeds castin’ like that, Greene.”

“Well, if I do, I’ll pick ‘em off myself, so don’t you worry about it, Mr. Dixon.”

Daryl snorts softly and shakes his head. He flicks his knife against the taut line in his hands and begins to knot a lure onto the line. Beth grins, and begins to turn her reel.

Sitting in the moonlight on this perfect, warm night, it's easy to forget where they are and everything that's happened to them. Everything they've lost. For a moment, they're just sitting out on a beautiful late summer night, just fishing. Just living.

Beth feels weight pull on the end of her line, but it’s a steady, dead weight. She laughs when she reels the line out of the water and finds a tangle of brownish-green weeds attached to her hook.

“If we don’t catch a fish, at least I caught us a salad.”

Daryl snorts again, tying off the series of tiny, perfect knots he’s used to attach the hook and lure. He pulls his arm back and sends out another low, wide cast. Beth flops the heap of weeds onto the deck by her side and unfastens it from her hook before tossing the greenery back into the creek. She casts a little more modestly, this time.

“How d’you keep that up?”

“Keep what up?”

“Y’know,” he says, gesturing vaguely at her with his free hand. “Always makin’ the best outta what we got, always findin’ some reason to smile. How d’you do that?”

Beth doesn’t answer him right away, just considers him and the question. He sounds almost bitter, like he’s pissed at her for something. For being the way she is, maybe, or at life for being the way it is.

“I don’t know,” she says, after a pause. “My mom always said it was best to focus on what you’ve got, instead of what you don’t. I forgot how to do that, for a minute there, and it wasn’t great.”

She thinks about the scar on her wrist. She’s glad she’s got the fishing rod in her hand to keep her occupied; sometimes she still finds herself absently scratching the scar, and the last thing she wants to do is draw Daryl’s attention to it.

Daryl grunts as he pulls back his arm and casts his line.

“Yeah, but _how_?”

Beth considers this, uncertain herself of the answer, until she realises she knows. She’s been practicing for months without even thinking about why she was doing it.

“Well… Every mornin’ when I wake up, I think of one thing I’m grateful for. And every day, I try to find somethin’ beautiful. And every night when I go to sleep, I make myself find one good thing that happened that day. Even when it’s hard.”

There’s no sound but the soft buzz of the fishing line as they slowly reel in, dragging their hooks back to them through the water, and the lovelorn frogs and crickets still chirping undaunted into the night.

“That’s some serious Oprah shit,” Daryl says, eventually, his tone mild.

Beth snorts. 

“Maybe,” she says, “but it works for me. So far. If you can’t find good things in the world, you gotta make ‘em yourself.”

Daryl doesn’t reply to that, just grunts quietly in acknowledgement and looks out over the water.

Beth knows that he’s turning her words over in his mind, testing them, looking for weaknesses, considering their worth.

“Like what?” he asks, finally, after he sends out another cast. He turns his head and looks at her.

Beth squirms inside, uncomfortable and unsure as she remembers the way he exploded at her the night before. That he was drunk didn’t help, but she knows that every word he spat at her was still the truth.

“No… You’ll think it’s stupid.”

Daryl’s expression softens, and something that looks an awful lot like shame creeps in.

“I won’t,” he says, his voice low. He nudges his bare shoulder against hers. “C’mon.”

“Well… Like singing.” Daryl’s gaze on her is heavy and serious, and suddenly she wants to look away, so she does, out over the shining water. “Like how the stars are so bright these days. Have you noticed? There’s no cities around to dull them anymore. Or how it’s so quiet sometimes that you can really hear yourself, your own heartbeat.”

“Like us,” she continues, turning back to look at him. She gestures at the space between them. “Like this. Something beautiful, even now.”

Daryl stares at her like she just suggested that they go live on the moon.

“The fuck you mean?”

“I mean, like, you and me,” Beth explains, her cheeks heating at the severe crease in Daryl’s brow. “We got out together. That’s pretty lucky, right? That we found each other like we did? Who knows what happened to everyone else. They could all be out here somewhere on their own, all alone. Or worse.”

He blinks a couple of times, and Beth can see he’s biting at the inside of his lower lip. Almost like he’s nervous. Finally, he looks away, back at the water.

“Guess that’s one way of lookin’ at things.”

Beth looks at his profile, embarrassment churning in her stomach.

"It's okay," she says, looking back out over the water as she casts her line. "I probably wouldn't be thrilled to have dead weight to haul around with me, if I were you."

Daryl turns his head sharply to look at her, a scowl on his face. A beat passes.

" _Stop_. I said a lot of stupid shit yesterday and you shouldn't mind any of it. Told you: I'm a dick when I'm drunk."

Beth purses her lips and slowly turns her reel. She hadn’t really meant to dredge that up; he apologised already, in his way, and she’d accepted it in hers. But the scar he’d picked open, the wound of learning that she was helpless and powerless and foolish in this world, that would take longer to heal. 

It might not ever heal. After all, it’s just the truth. It’s just the way things are.

"Anyhow, you ain't dead weight. We’d still be sittin’ in that suck-ass camp if it weren’t for you.”

Beth shifts her weight and nudges his shoulder with hers. 

“We’d still be sittin’ there hungry if it weren’t for you.”

Daryl scoffs again, but when Beth glances to the side, she catches the briefest glimpse of a smile at the corner of his mouth before it disappears.

Beth feels a little tug on her line, followed by a harder jolt as a fish snaps at her lure.

She's about to say something, but Daryl makes a soft, pleased sound. He must have noticed her line dart on the surface of the water. He’s watching the end of it intently, his own rod all but forgotten in his hands.

"There you go," he murmurs. “Lead him over gently, real slow, then give it a tug, one hard flick. Try to set that hook good.”

“I know how to catch a fish,” Beth whispers. She’s landed her own fish before. _Once_.

Daryl says nothing, and Beth, holding her breath, slowly starts to lead the fish closer to the dock, parallel to the shore. When she’s managed to bring it closer, the fish still an idle, curious weight happy to swim along with her line, she snaps her hand up, sinking the hook. The fish darts away, but the hook holds fast.

"You got this, girl."

His voice is low and sure, like he really has every confidence in her. Beth bites her bottom lip and winds her reel steadily in.

The fish fights her a bit, but not hard, and she stays with it, her shoulders loose and her biceps tensed as she reels in as gently as she can. As her line shortens up, she catches her first glimpse of a decent-sized green fish flank as it turns and shows its white belly just beneath the surface of the water.

Daryl drops to his stomach on the dock and reaches down to grab the fish with his bare hands.

“Got ‘im,” he grunts, holding tightly to the slippery, struggling fish. “Look at that. Rainbow trout. Good job, Greene.”

Beth beams, half stunned that she’s actually managed to land a fish they can eat, while Daryl takes his knife and taps the fish firmly with the handle at the base of its skull, stunning and killing it.

He unhooks her line from the fish’s jaw and gets to his feet.

Beth follows, standing right in front of him, still staring at the fish in his hands, almost disbelieving. She really caught that fish. She got them some actual _food_.

Something swells inside her, something proud and hopeful and fierce that makes her chest ache and her eyes burn.

Maybe she’s not like Daryl, or Maggie, or the others. But maybe she doesn’t have to be. Maybe she isn’t helpless.

Maybe she _can_ make it.

Beth glances up to see Daryl smiling at her so big she can actually see his teeth. She’s not sure she’s ever seen him smile like that before, except maybe the night he and Maggie brought formula back to the prison for Judith.

Daryl’s smile softens and he looks down for a moment before his gaze flicks quickly back up to hers. His expression turns awkward and uncertain, and Beth remembers that she’s still wearing only her underwear. Her cheeks go warm.

“I’m gonna…” she gestures with her thumb at the clothes still heaped on the dock.

Daryl turns away and Beth goes to grab her clothes. While she pulls them on, Daryl guts and fillets the fish, his knife flashing in the moonlight. As soon she’s dressed, Beth scoops out a little hollow in the sandy soil and builds a small fire with the matches they found at the country club. 

Beth slices the fish into chunks and tosses it in the bottom of one of the collapsible pans while Daryl gets dressed and laces up his boots. Without any oil, the fish sticks to the pan, but Beth does her best not to completely destroy the flesh as she flips it with a sharp stick.

When Daryl’s dressed, he comes and sits beside her by the fire, his knee pressing against hers.

The fish cooks quickly, and soon enough, they’re using the second pan as a shared dish, scooping out pieces of flaky fish with their bare fingers. Beth burns her tongue and her fingertips but she hardly cares and neither does Daryl, both of them gobbling up the fresh tasting fish as fast as they can.

When they’ve finished, Daryl kicks sand over the fire and rinses the pans in the creek.

Beth sits against the trunk of a tree near the collapsed tent, watching him, and for the first time since they fled the prison, she feels full and almost content.

Daryl brings the pans over and stows them back inside the camper’s backpack. He looks up at her.

“You all right for a minute? I gotta take a piss.”

“Sure.”

Daryl nods and ducks between the trees. Beth reaches into the backpack for the water purification tube and their empty water bottles, and goes down to the edge of the creek once again.

She kneels in the sand and drinks until her stomach starts to churn. Then she attempts to see whether the gas syphoning skills Glenn and Daryl taught her over a year ago transfer over to the straw in her hands. They do, and she manages to fill both of their bottles before Daryl returns.

He stands at the edge of the trees and beckons her with one hand.

“Found somethin’. C’mon.”

He reaches down and picks up both backpacks and his bow. Beth caps the water bottles and grabs the straw, stowing it all in the leather backpack Daryl holds out to her. She swings it onto her back and follows him into the darkness of the trees.

They don’t get far before they arrive at a small clearing and Daryl stops her with a hand on her forearm. With his other hand he points up and ahead of them, at a massive tree that Beth can’t identify in the darkness. But she can see what Daryl’s pointing at: a rough, handmade platform high up in the tree that must have been someone’s deer stand.

As they approach the base of the tree and the wooden rungs nailed into it, Daryl taps her forearm again and gestures with his head at the tree.

“Go ‘head. I’ll be right behind you.”

Beth shifts the weight of the backpack on her shoulders, grabs onto the crude wooden rungs before her, and begins to climb, her arms aching. Daryl gives her a head start before she hears him climbing beneath her.

When she gets to the top, she heaves herself up onto the platform and rolls out of the way to let Daryl up.

He lifts himself up after her, collapsing beside her on the platform with a loud exhalation of breath. They rest together for a moment, and then Daryl gets to his knees and opens the sleeping bag, spreading it out flat on the plywood floor.

Beth shrugs off her backpack and sets it aside before turning around on her knees. They’re high up enough in the trees that they can see much of the sky. She sits down on the edge of the platform, letting her feet dangle off, resting her arms and her chin on the lower part of the railing.

She can still see the moonlight glinting off the creek’s surface through the trees.

Daryl sits down beside her, swinging his legs over the edge of the platform.

"Oughta get some sleep," he says.

"I know. I just wanna enjoy the moon a little longer. It's such a nice night."

Daryl doesn't reply right away, but when he does, his voice is gruff and low.

"Yeah. It's real nice."

They sit in silence for several minutes like that, side-by-side, looking at the moon and stars over the treetops, and the shimmering silver glimpses of the creek. The crickets and frogs' singing is muffled and distant up in their hideaway, but Beth can still just hear it.

Nearby, a barn owl hoots its eerie call.

Her skin and hair are clean, and the temperature feels like it's dropped, the breeze cool where it touches her. Everything around her feels peaceful and gentle and good, almost like she's still got a bellyful of moonshine to dull the ugliness.

She could almost forget for a moment everything they've lost, and simply revel in what they've found.

_Is that bad? To be happy, even for a minute, after everything?_

Daryl clears his throat.

“So, what’s your one good thing that happened today?”

"That's easy. Goin’ for a swim with you."

Beth glances to the side to find Daryl watching her, a half-smile on his face. She likes him like this. She likes him _period_ , and has since before they took the prison as their home. But she likes him like this, quiet and soft, willing to go along with her whims, willing to make her happy.

Willing, somehow, to try to be happy, himself.

“How about you?”

Daryl’s mouth twists.

“Shit. Shoulda figured you’d turn it ‘round on me.”

Beth laughs. “You don’t have to say, if you don’t want.”

Daryl’s quiet for a moment.

“Belly full of trout is pretty damn good, but… I think maybe it was when we woke up this mornin’.”

Beth wrinkles her brow. “Your good thing today was wakin’ up in the woods with a hangover?”

“Sure, my head was killin’ me and I coulda used a pot of coffee and somethin’ greasy to eat, but… I dunno. I’ve woken up in worse places and in worse company.”

Beth can only stare at him, unblinking and unable to think of a reply to that. A muscle in his jaw jumps as he chews on the inside of his cheek, and she realises he has more to say. She doesn't speak and instead just waits.

"You weren't mad. After everythin' yesterday. Even though I was shitty to you. I woulda deserved it, you bein' pissed at me, but you weren't. You aren’t."

“Daryl, I had fun last night. Last night was just about the best damn night ever.”

“Yeah, but _before_ that.”

Beth blinks and looks down at her lap.

It's true, she didn't wake up angry this morning. She was angry as hell yesterday, angrier than she can remember being in a very long time. But it disappeared. It disappeared with his tears. It disappeared with the way his voice broke as he blamed himself for her dad's death.

It disappeared with the flames and smoke and broken glass.

Beth places her hand on Daryl's wrist where it lies in his lap.

"It'll take a whole lot more than you losin' your temper to get me to turn tail and ditch you. Just so you know."

Daryl turns his head and looks at her. The expression on his face is raw, and Beth realises she spoke the truth before she even fully understood that that’s what it was.

He wanted to scare her away.

"I'm not gonna leave you," she says.

Daryl swallows loudly enough for her to hear it, a soft click in his throat, and he nods awkwardly.

"All right," he mutters.

Beth's hand is still resting on his wrist, and she wonders if he can feel how hard her pulse is pounding. She exhales tightly.

"Sorry, but you'll just have to sneak off in the night to get rid of me."

Daryl snorts and shakes his head.

" _Stop_."

Beth smiles and lets go of his wrist, turning to peer out at the dark trees and the bright moon. After a moment, Daryl’s voice breaks the silence again.

“We’re good, right?”

She looks over to find him watching her, his expression terribly serious, and she thinks again: _I like him like this. I_ like _him._

Quickly, before she loses her nerve, she leans over and kisses the warm, scruffy skin of his cheek.

Daryl jolts like she just held a live wire to his skin.

"The hell'd you do that for?"

She shrugs her shoulders.

"I wanted to."

Daryl just knits his brow and glowers at her.

"Didn't nobody ever tell you not to go around kissin' strange men?"

“You’re not strange.”

"Pfft." His cheeks are dark pink. 

“I’m sorry,” Beth says, nudging her shoulder against his. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Daryl scowls out at the trees for a long, silent moment. He must be grinding his teeth because his jaw is clenched and a muscle in his cheek jumps.

Finally, he makes an aggravated noise in his throat.

“Fuck it.”

Daryl turns his head and looks at her dead-on.

“Can I kiss you?”

Beth blinks, her cheeks warming under his intense stare.

“Yes.”

Daryl’s mouth flattens and he swallows. He leans closer to her, but hesitates, his face no more than an inch from hers. He licks his bottom lip and then draws it back between his teeth, chewing at it.

He’s nervous, she realises. Just like before, she’s making him nervous.

Beth wants to reassure him, to tell him it's okay, but somehow she knows that it would make things worse. Instead, she sits still and she waits, keeping her gaze steady on his.

Daryl closes the distance between them and brushes his lips against hers.

It’s a kiss that’s tentative and unskilled, but determined, somehow, and Beth realises that there are many more things she does not know about this man than things she does.

On a night like this, she could almost believe that she’ll get enough time to find some of them out.

Beth tilts her head and kisses him back, gently pushing into his space. When he exhales softly and his breath brushes her cheek, she can’t help but smile. He must feel the stretch of her lips against his own, because he pulls back an inch and looks at her, his eyes narrow.

“What’re you smilin’ at?”

Beth grins.

“I’m _happy_ , Daryl.”

“Oh.”

Beth kisses him again, briefly, then looks back out at the moonlit forest.

They should lie down and get some rest, and they will, but they don’t right away.

Instead they sit and watch the moon sink behind the trees, their thighs and shoulders pressed together. Daryl reaches over and takes her hand in his, and neither of them speaks as they watch the night pass away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for lending me your eyes. Hope you enjoyed, and if you did, I'd love to know! <3
> 
> I've got a bunch more Beth/Daryl fic making its way to you. See you again soon!


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